Thursday, February 15, 2007

We visited two Rat Terrier breeders on the way home from our camping trip. It was educational -- to say the least. I had extensive emails with both breeders, visited their websites, and spoke with both of them on the phone. But, the experience of visiting them was so different.

One was -- well, there aren't really words to describe it. Appalling, terrible, filthy, rural poverty at its worst, these words come close but it was truly awful. It was all I could do to be polite while we were there and keep it as brief as possible. Needless to say, we scratched that breeder off my list. I am still feeling troubled by the whole thing.

The other one was great. A small ranchette with a bunch of ratties. Sweet dogs with great personalities. Two of them were rowdy 16 week old boys who were a hoot! Even Gage found them to be fun and he doesn't like rowdy dogs. This breeder had a 2 year old girl named Jordy that we needed to consider.

Ruby

So, all the way home, all that night and the next day, we thought and talked and debated. We finally came up with a plan of action -- I needed some more information from Ruby's breeder and then we'd decide. She emailed me back immediately and we made our decision very quickly.

On Sunday, Ruby is going to become our dog! I'm so excited! Ruthie is bouncing off the walls excited. Gage is really excited too. Even Greg is getting into the act!

So, it was a long journey from losing two dogs in a month to being dogless to meeting a Rat Terrier to thinking that maybe someday we'd get a Rattie to meeting a Rattie breeder to meeting Ruby to getting Ruby. Whew!

I feel pretty confident that we are making the right decision. Remind me of that when we go through the inevitable growing and settling in pains involved in getting a new dog!